Had a very good comment on my recent podcast.  I posted a long reply.  I just thought I would make the comment and my reply into its own post.

Bill,

I listened to your podcast today about pink slime and I think you are way off base.  You are proving that you and your Commercial Production Agriculture radicals are just out there to make a buck.  Your lean finely textured beef is not just beef trimmings as you would say.  It is “beef” scrap that cannot be removed from the bone without mechanical process liken unto wire brushing.  The residue of bone and meat and fat is heated and spun in a centrifuge to separate the products then it is treated with ammonia and that, sir, is your beef trimmings or LFTB.  Nothing like beef trimmings more like pink slime, such a low quality product that most people would not even feed it to pets.

But of course you already know this you are just trying to put your radical commercial production agriculture spin on it.  Just like the corn farmer supporting E15 which creates issues in fuel systems and contributes to rising food costs.

I was born and raised on a hog and grain farm and was driven off the farm by your commercial production agriculture radicals.  I would consider myself college educated middle class, a libertarian, and a Christian and I don’t support LFTB.

I am interested in homesteading and permaculture and listen to several podcasts in that genre.  They rant about CPA and Monsanto and poisoning the earth quite often and I grew tired and felt that it was a personal attack with my roots so I added your podcast to the mix to temper their noise.  But after your last several episodes about the farm bill and pink slime I think that they are more correct all the time.

Please, Bill, don’t cause me to lose any more faith in the American farmer.  Maybe they all died out in the 80’s.  The only thing left is greed at the expense of the earth and our health.

name removed by me to protect the innocent

Name removed by me to protect the innocent,

Sorry you feel this way.  I too barely survived the 1980′s.  I paid 17% interest on money back then.  I was also born and raised on a hog and grain farm.  I also thought after I graduated from Illinois State University, after going 2 years to a Community College to save money, that I would always just raise a bunch of hogs and farm some ground and that would be that.  Got out of the hogs in 1994.  Late 1990′s were tough on the income side also and I had a wife and 3 kids, which was much different then the 1980′s when first it was just me and then it was just Judi and I.

By today’s standards we are still very small farmers.  We just try to make everything count to make the ends meet.  I also have learned a lot from watching other farmers and yes some of them are very large.

I have one farm that is bordered on  2 sides by 2 different 60,000 acre operations, a 20,000 acre operation is on another side and a 11,000 acre operation borders me on the other.  Yes, the pressures are huge in my area where cash rents are in the $300 to $500 dollar an acre range.

I also support your decision to not eat “pink slime” as you call it which I believe is just an attempt to turn people off from eating beef.  With our small cattle operation if you and I could come to an agreement where the money was right I would raise your beef you would by from me any way you would like it raised as long as it was not inhumane to the animals in my opinion.  But, I would hope you would also respect my right to produce a product for sale to others that they could afford that would be economical for them to purchase.

And no we did not die out in the 1980′s we just figured out that farming is not just a lifestyle that only the very rich could afford if we the remaining farmers did not run our farms as businesses also.

I have to make some money to take care of my family, reinvest into the farm, provide a cushion against the hard times that will come again, and try and provide a little something for the next generation.  I have 2 boys who want to farm.  I know I can make room for one of them and I worry everyday how to grow the farm in this environment agriculture is in to bring another into this operation also.

Couple last comments about the farm bill and Monsanto and others.  If I was “king” for a day the farm bill would be much different than it is now, but 1, I am not king, and 2, I have to be realistic on what I think is possible and what will/could happen and how farmers need to position their operations to survive what is coming down the road at them.

Monsanto and other big agricultural companies, love them or hate them, they are here to stay and have tremendous clout and influence in agriculture.  Maybe farmers just have to learn how to “get along” with this fact and figure out how to still stay profitable in agriculture.

As for the homesteading and “permaculture”.  What ever that means, since a permanent culture could be so many things to so many people, these are lifestyle choices.  And I am happy for the people that choose to do this, just do not force me to do it too.  My question, how/what do they do to make the money they need to support this lifestyle?  Whether they need large or small amounts of money, they still need a basic minimum to survive on.  Maybe that is why they rant about “big agriculture”.

You also said you were a libertarian.  If that is so then why can’t meat processing companies sell lean finely textured beef?  You then have the right not to buy that product and spend more money on other more expensive cuts of meat, right?  Just a question.

Thanks for the comments, I appreciate it when somebody makes me think.

Thanks again.

I could say so much more.  And it would be constructive comments.  I just think at times shorter answers are better.  I did not comment on the “spin” comment.  That is one thing I do is call it as I see it.  I think life would be better if we all cut down on the “gray” areas.  Life should be more like baseball, every pitch is either a ball or a strike, not “that was too close too call”.  So if you think it is spin, you don’t know me.  I always try to either call it a ball or a strike.  Any body want to play ball?